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Re: Making a standing lugsail for my Argie 15 (Todd Bradshaw design)

SMA says "The first reef row reduces the sail area by 30%", which is no hard rule of course but a decent starting point.
The next row with equal distance to the first as the first to the foot.
I always put the reef row tilted so that the reef clew comes higher than the reef tack, maybe by 5-10 cm for your boat, next row tilted some more.
SMA says this is only for boomed sails, but I like to do it anyways since with harder winds I like to have the clew further away from my head, and I usually have the reefed sail hoisted a bit lower than the unreefed.
I put the reef points a bit lower on the sail than a parallel with the foot line from tack to clew, so as to put most or all of the strain on the tack/clew.
Reef points perhaps 50 cm apart (not too important, what looks good)

Re: Making a standing lugsail for my Argie 15 (Todd Bradshaw design)

Pre-cut Dac tape is fine if you're working with white Dacron. The sailcloth manufacturers don't generally offer it in colors, though Sairite might, as they can cut their own with their plotter. I cut my own, since most of my sails are either cream or tanbark fabric, with an occasional other color used. When splitting fabric for narrow panels, I'll occasionally leave one panel width to be cut up into my luff, head or foot tapes. Diagonal taped and sewn splices can be used if you have to make longer strips. I do panel cutting and splitting with a utility knife. It is a bit more prone to raveling along the edges than some sort of hot-cutter would produce, but once seams and edges have been tape-basted and zig-zagged-over it really isn't a problem. Hot knife slitting (even with a very good one) tends to make ugly, irregular edges. I'd rather trim off a few loose strands once in a while than have ugly melted edges all the time.

Once I took ten yards of Egyptian Cream Dacron, rolled it up very tightly and evenly on the cardboard tube and then cut a series of panel widths and edge tape widths with my band saw, sawing through the tube and all. It almost worked. It generated enough heat to semi-seal the cut edge, but once unrolled, the panels had just enough wobble along their edges to be non-usable and difficult to join neatly. In the end, those panels had to be re-cut to a slightly narrower width and straight edges with a knife. The same experiment on the radial arm saw yielded a pretty violently torn up hunk of Dacron.

I fold by hand and rub the crease down with the handle of a small screw driver. I probably should make myself a nice little seam rubber, but it's a bit late at this point. I needed one when making my first sail in 1980 and just grabbed the little screwdriver that came with my sewing machine. I used the plastic handle to rub down the creases on the edge tapes. It worked OK and every creased piece of Dac tape on every sail I've ever built has been rubbed down with that same cheap little screwdriver's handle. It's getting pretty worn down from it at this point.

I always put the reef row tilted so that the reef clew comes higher than the reef tack, maybe by 5-10 cm for your boat, next row tilted some more.

Reef lines on a standing lug (especially second or third reefs) should be drawn out and planned very carefully. Putting the reef in requires moving a former spot on the luff, which had been out ahead of the mast, back aft to the mast to be the new reef tack. If you want to be able to reef without having to move the halyard tie off point or without it drastically changing the location of the CE and tilting the whole yard/sail/boom or foot angle scenario, then you may need to do some dramatic angle changing on upper reef lines. This doesn't happen on balanced lugs, but can on standing lugs. You can usually get away with a "normal" reef angle for the first reef, but the angle of the second one may need to be changed as shown here to keep the boom or foot from ending up at some funky angle and the CE dramatically out of place.

Thanks for the generous replies. This is really what I hoped for making this thread!

The shipping cost from Sailite is very high compared to some ebay shops. A few rolls with tape costs 44 usd to ship here... same as shipping the whole roll for the sail... I cant find any ebay shops selling precut tapes so I chose to cut strips myself.

Here is my candidate to crease the folded tape. Its a polished reindeers antler I use to smooth the leather on my knife sheaths

Re: Making a standing lugsail for my Argie 15 (Todd Bradshaw design)

Thanks Todd, easy to see that the first reef parallel to the foot gives a similar effect on a standing lug as I've intended on my gaff and sprit sails.
I'll add that drawing the reefed sail(s) and a new calculation of the CE is a really good idea. Also for a boomless sail, the sheeting point is of some importance (although I have to admit I'm not very good at finding the best place).

Re: Making a standing lugsail for my Argie 15 (Todd Bradshaw design)

Some of the high performance beach catamarans have used a sturdy, full length batten on the bottom of their sails in place of a boom. They're usually flat slabs, rather than round and have more bulk and stiffness than a fishing pole but something along those lines might be possible. It might yield a more useful lower sail shape when the sail is eased out for downwind.

Re: Making a standing lugsail for my Argie 15 (Todd Bradshaw design)

Originally Posted by Fredostli

The shipping cost from Sailite is very high compared to some ebay shops. A few rolls with tape costs 44 usd to ship here... same as shipping the whole roll for the sail... I cant find any ebay shops selling precut tapes so I chose to cut strips myself.

Duckworks Boat Building Supply also sells sails and sail making supplies for home-builders, at typically quite reasonable prices and great service. A good alternative to Sailrite, at the least. http://www.duckworksbbs.com/category-s/257.htm

I've made some sails, including standing lugs - but probably wouldn't have if it weren't for Todd Bradshaw generously sharing his knowledge and experience. Thanks, Todd!

Re: Making a standing lugsail for my Argie 15 (Todd Bradshaw design)

just got help from son nr. 1 posting newest video.
Every man should have his own sewing machine: preferably cast iron, black with heavy chrome flywheel. I have a Pfaff 130 with handcrank . To make sails, covers, repairs. Frank

Lazy and very cold Christmas holyday. Perfect for reading in my new book, and making my own sailmakers palm. I think Sailmakers Apprentice looks like a good book but a bit "heavy" to read for a norwegian. But I will find all I need here. The palm is made of some old leather and not the best quality, but it works ok, and custom made for my hand

Re: Making a standing lugsail for my Argie 15 (Todd Bradshaw design)

The palm looks ok to begin with, but you will find flaws with it if you get into hand sewing and hand roping.
The wart (is that the right word in English?, the metal part where you put the neadle head) should be aligned more ehm perpendicular to the thumb, ie the needle is pushed into the canvas more or less paralel to the thumb.
Another thing that you'll learn to apreciate if you keep it up using hand methods is that good palms are made with lots of raw hide, they are stiff as iron.
Uncomfortable at first, but soaked in hot water and shaped to your hand by using it wet makes it your best friend.
Your palm will work just fine for what you are planning, just saying...

Re: Making a standing lugsail for my Argie 15 (Todd Bradshaw design)

^ What Mats said
The one at the back is a shop bought roping palm.DSC03322.jpg
The one in front is my remake of my grandfathers seaming palm. the rawhide came from a dogs rawhide chew.
The leather is a bit thin, but all I had to hand, the rawhide is key.

It really is quite difficult to build an ugly wooden boat.
The power of the web: Anyone can post anything on the web
The weakness of the web: Anyone can post anything on the web.

Re: Making a standing lugsail for my Argie 15 (Todd Bradshaw design)

My seaming palm:
I've sewn about 200 m of sailcloth stitches and 30 m of roping with it and I feel that I've outgrown it. It's too loose in its construction.
Still far better than what is easilly available nearby.
Toplicht has some and I actually bought their roping palm recently (http://www.toplicht.de/en/shop/takel...-roping-no.-16) but I have yet to work it in and cut the ends to length (and redo some of the sewing).

I do wish I could find my fathers palm, I'm sure I have it somewhere...

Two main layers - a sturdy, full base layer (ideally about 12 oz. veg tanned tooling leather) and a rawhide top layer covering everything except leg "B" of the base layer (soak and unwind a dog chew - the tan kind, not the bleached white ones). The iron does not have to be made from iron. A hunk of steel or brass rod might be easier to obtain and machine into the desired shape. An additional layer or two of sturdy leather are usually added between the main layers under the iron area and tapering out as leg "A" tapers down to a strap. You really want that palm area as stiff as possible to spread the pressure out. Print the patterns on paper, cut them out, tape the joints together and try them on your hand to find the size that fits best.

Once done, soak the palm and then form it to fit your hand. Take the wet palm off very carefully and set it aside to dry to that shape. Then it can be varnished or painted if desired (Smith uses black paint on their rawhide for some strange reason, which kind of looks like crap, but I guess it's traditional or something). I just varnish mine, if anything. Never oil a palm or do anything else to it which softens leather. Soft is bad, stiff is good.

Re: Making a standing lugsail for my Argie 15 (Todd Bradshaw design)

What I never got is the other difference between the sewing palm and roping palm, the additional leather around the thumb is useful, but I never really got why the seaming palm lacks that either.
Anyways, as far as I know the roping palms usually have a smaller what we call wart, the metal thingie that you put the needle head onto, the roping palm also have less and I think larger hmm undulations? Dents in it where the needle is "caught".

Re: Making a standing lugsail for my Argie 15 (Todd Bradshaw design)

Originally Posted by mohsart

What I never got is the other difference between the sewing palm and roping palm, the additional leather around the thumb is useful, but I never really got why the seaming palm lacks that either.
Anyways, as far as I know the roping palms usually have a smaller what we call wart, the metal thingie that you put the needle head onto, the roping palm also have less and I think larger hmm undulations? Dents in it where the needle is "caught".

/Mats

Not sure about why the guard around the thumb, but the larger fewer dimples in the iron are because roping needles are so much larger.
The other thing that no one has mentioned is that the strap, A B in Todd's pattern should be long enough to stand proud of the back of your hand. It should not be a tight fit.

Last edited by Peerie Maa; 12-31-2017 at 06:29 PM.

It really is quite difficult to build an ugly wooden boat.
The power of the web: Anyone can post anything on the web
The weakness of the web: Anyone can post anything on the web.

Re: Making a standing lugsail for my Argie 15 (Todd Bradshaw design)

Oh, are they larger? Why would that be? They cut through the same amounts of layers of canvas?
I'm not sure what you mean by that other statement, A and B should meet as close as possible but not overlapping; or that is what I have been taught and what I consider to be right untill Todd tells me I'm wrong.

Re: Making a standing lugsail for my Argie 15 (Todd Bradshaw design)

Originally Posted by mohsart

Oh, are they larger? Why would that be? They cut through the same amounts of layers of canvas?
I'm not sure what you mean by that other statement, A and B should meet as close as possible but not overlapping; or that is what I have been told at least.

/Mats

They have to be long and stiff enough to (not actually but nearly) open the lay of the rope like a fid, also roping twine is a lot heavier than seaming thread.
As to the strap at the back, yours and my grandfathers are secured by buckles, implying that they are adjustable. They should be adjusted to a loose fit, not cinched up snug.

It really is quite difficult to build an ugly wooden boat.
The power of the web: Anyone can post anything on the web
The weakness of the web: Anyone can post anything on the web.

Re: Making a standing lugsail for my Argie 15 (Todd Bradshaw design)

Ok, I've always used the same seaming for roping as for seaming, opening the lays was sometimes a problem but I doudt a larger needle would have helped, needles dulled a bit or even using them backwards was useful though.
Yes, fairly loose. The buckle is a pain though, and there is no need for one. Once you figure out how long the straps are to be you cut them to length and lace them togethebr />
/Mats

Re: Making a standing lugsail for my Argie 15 (Todd Bradshaw design)

I was taught, and it makes sense to me, that the thread and thereby needle size was determined by the weight of the canvas. Larger thread and needles will damage the sail cloth by cutting of fibres unnessesarily.
I'd be happy to be proven wrong, cause then I'd have learned something.

Re: Making a standing lugsail for my Argie 15 (Todd Bradshaw design)

Thread and needle sizes for hand seaming have always been determined by the fabric's weight, and a lot of traditional sails were made from fabric too light to really be called "canvas". In general, if you can sew your seams with reasonably light thread and smaller needles (with smaller stitches) you will end up with smoother seams and smoother sails. Once you get into sewing reinforcements, rings, roping, etc. and situations where you need to really pull stitches tight, then the thumb shield of the roping palm, bigger needles and heavier twine make more sense. For good ring sewing, for example, you should be pulling the stitches tight enough that you would risk breaking seaming-weight sail twine.

Buckles on sail palms are the creation of mass marketing. A real palm should be sized once and left that way for the duration, made to fit only the hand of its owner/user. Unfortunately as well, an awful lot of the palms sold today don't seem to be designed by anybody who actually knows how to use one, or what features are important and make one worth owning. There often seems to be a big empty void between cheap, miserable examples and very expensive professional palms. I suppose it fits right in with the rest of the traditional sailmaking tools and hardware. There simply just isn't enough demand these days for most of this stuff to bother to produce it.

Strap tightness, or not? It's up to you. There is no reason to cut off circulation, but it needs to stay securely in place - even when you are putting considerable pressure on it. Once you have a needle pop out of the iron under high pressure and the aft end of it stab you in the hand you will understand why you want the palm to fit well and not move around.

Re: Making a standing lugsail for my Argie 15 (Todd Bradshaw design)

For reinforcements I get it, but for roping? Sure, in the corners there are quite a bit of layers of sailcloth, possibly as many as there are in a corner without roping...
Anyways, I think that a roping palm makes the most sense to use. I don't really see the sense of there being a sewing palm around. There is always going to be a need to stretch the thread using the extra leather around your thumb (while, sure, it will come in more use during reinforcements, not sure about roping).
And, I'm not sure where I read it, but someone wrote that once you start using your palm, the needle will start to hit the same dimple all the time, and my experience agrees with this, at least more or less, so the size of the metal plate of the roping palm is more than big enough for me.
Now, I have pierced my thumb muscle with the back end of needles a couple of times, but I don't blame the size of the plate but the angle of it. And perhaps a bit of (more) rawhide close to the metal plate. (And my inexperience of course.)

Re: Making a standing lugsail for my Argie 15 (Todd Bradshaw design)

Originally Posted by Peerie Maa

^ What Mats said
The one at the back is a shop bought roping palm.DSC03322.jpg
The one in front is my remake of my grandfathers seaming palm. the rawhide came from a dogs rawhide chew.
The leather is a bit thin, but all I had to hand, the rawhide is key.

Found some thicker leather so remade Granddad's palm, again.DSC03323.jpg

It really is quite difficult to build an ugly wooden boat.
The power of the web: Anyone can post anything on the web
The weakness of the web: Anyone can post anything on the web.

A drawing to make a plan for broadseams and corner/reef patches and reefs. Its a challenge to make the patches look good estetically and also be the right shape for strenght, so be free to comment. Second photo is holding a needle with my sailmakers palm.... dont feels bad to me but I believe you have a comment on that too 😊 I am here to learn!

I plan to mount steel rings with webbing and protect with leather in the corners and reefs.

Re: Making a standing lugsail for my Argie 15 (Todd Bradshaw design)

Patch design is quite personal choise. I used to make rectangular ones, but has switched to rounded. Rounded edges may be difficult in dacron (unless the edges are hot melted). I don't really understand your choise of design for the 1st/2nd reefs tack patch, but as I said it's mostly aesthetics.
I think it's common to not use patches for the reef-points, if they are put on seams.

Yes you more or less have to hold the needle like that with that plate angle, if you can hold it with your thumb and index finger you'll get more control.

Re: Making a standing lugsail for my Argie 15 (Todd Bradshaw design)

Yep, you should be pinching the tip of the needle between your thumb and index finger just slightly (maybe 1/2" or so) below the point. The needle's eye end should be in one of the dents in the iron and the tip of your second finger should be pushing it down there to brace it from moving out of the iron. You should also be able to put enough pressure on the needle at the iron with your second finger to push the needle firmly up against your thumb and hold it there while you remove your index finger. The needle should stay put up against your thumb, like this, and this allows you to use the index finger when needed to help position the fabric or in some cases push on the back side of the cloth as you push the needle through.

Since much of what we sew takes considerable needle pressure to get through, it is neither safe or efficient to leave the tip and much of the needle's length out there unsupported. Needles will get bent and can certainly also break - which usually means you get stabbed in the process.The proper needle/palm position will initially seem a bit awkward, but it just takes a while to get used to it. Once you do, it will give you a lot of control and the ability to fiddle with things when needed, while your finger back at the iron keeps the needle in position so it's ready to go when the stitching continues.

Re: Making a standing lugsail for my Argie 15 (Todd Bradshaw design)

Not shown because it is not needed on that sail. It can certainly be a good thing on lugs with really long luffs, but I've built a bunch of these over the years, doubled the luff tapes up for strength and have never had luff problems.

Re: Making a standing lugsail for my Argie 15 (Todd Bradshaw design)

I did not draw the leech hollow or Head round either, but will do on the lofting floor as specified in the plan.

I am almost ready sewing, but I need to find time when the local community house is free for me to use. There i have access to a suitable little hall where I can loft the sail.

I cannot damage the floor with spikes, so I must use masking tape to mark the outlines, and broadseam-zones. Is it an alternative to make some thin battens in the lenght of each side of the sail, and then lay out on the floor? If I work to slow I might have to remove the masking tape, and get back later and repeat the lofting, because of other arrangements in the house.